The present disclosure relates to systems and methods for collecting, communicating, displaying, and/or analyzing data from multiple patient care devices. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to systems and methods for handling data originating from patient support devices, such as hospital beds, from patient physiological monitors, such as blood pressure monitors or electrocardiographs, and from other patient care devices, such as IV pumps or ventilators, just to name a few.
In the healthcare field, sophisticated equipment from a variety of original equipment manufacturers may be used in connection with the care of each patient. For example, most patients admitted to hospitals are assigned to a hospital bed having a variety of functions which may include, but are not limited to, the ability to weigh the patient, the ability to monitor the position of the patient on a support surface, the ability to determine the position of various portions of the bed frame such as whether the siderails are up or down and the position of various movable deck sections that support the surface, including the angle at which a head section of the bed is elevated. Some hospital beds or mattress systems (sometimes referred to as surfaces) placed on hospital beds are able to perform therapeutic functions such as continuous lateral rotation therapy, pulsation and/or vibration therapies, and/or alternating pressure therapy. Additional surface functions, such as low air loss, maximum inflate, and rapid deflation for CPR may also be included. Accordingly, hospital beds and/or the associated surfaces include sophisticated control and monitoring systems that generate a wide variety of data.
Of course, other sophisticated pieces of equipment are also used in the healthcare field to provide patient care or to monitor the condition of a patient. Such equipment may include, but is not limited to, for example, life support equipment, such as ventilators; vital signs monitoring equipment such as electrocardiographs (EKG's), electroencephalographs (EEG's), heart rate monitors, blood pressure monitors, blood oxygen saturation monitors; and other patient care devices such as IV pumps, drug infusion pumps, insulin pumps, passive motion devices, and the like. Each of these pieces of equipment also typically has sophisticated control and monitoring systems that generate a wide variety of data.
Some hospitals may have similar pieces of equipment from different manufacturers to which caregivers may come into contract during their day to day activities. The ability of caregivers to master all of the control and monitoring functions of all of the equipment from different manufacturers in the healthcare setting is problematic. However, there are certain key pieces of information or data that common pieces of equipment will each make available to caregivers. Such key pieces of information are oftentimes logged into an Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system. It is not uncommon for caregivers to physically enter the key pieces of information on a handwritten chart and then that caregiver or a different caregiver keys the handwritten data into the EMR system at a later time. To enter the key pieces of information onto the handwritten chart may require the caregiver to know how to navigate through user interface screens of a number of devices marketed by a number of different companies. All of these manual activities by caregivers to find the needed information, enter the data on a chart, and transfer the data at a later time to the EMR system introduce potential sources of error in the data.
Acquiring the key pieces of information automatically from the wide variety of medical equipment for data entry into the EMR system, as well as having the ability to present the wide variety of data to caregivers more uniformly regardless of the type of equipment from which it originates, may be useful in some care settings. Also, a system which is programmable to establish alarm conditions based on logical conditions (e.g., OR conditions and/or AND conditions) applied to data from different patient care devices may have benefit in some instances. Standards of Care are sometimes established for the care of patients and data from different pieces of care equipment may measure aspects of the Standard of Care. The ability to have a common system that monitors the various aspects of the Standard of Care based on data from different devices and that alarm or provides alerts to caregivers when conditions outside the Standard of Care are detected may also be useful in some care settings.